Another question may indeed be asked: whence came this idea of twofold messengership, higher and lower? and would it not have been more natural if the whole of this function had been intrusted to one deity? This question is, I believe, just, and requires that a special account should be given of an arrangement apparently anomalous. Such an account I have endeavoured to supply in treating of Iris, by shewing that she owes her place to a primeval tradition, while Mercury owes his to an ideal conformity with the laws of the Olympian system.
And in truth there is no single deity, on whom the stamp of that system has been more legibly impressed. It might be said of the Homeric Mercury, that he exceeds in humanism (to coin a word for the purpose) the other Olympian gods, as much as they excel the divinities of any other system. His type is wholly and purely inventive, without a trace of what is traditional. He represents, so to speak, the utilitarian side of the human mind, which was of small account in the age of Homer, but has since been more esteemed. In the limitation of his faculties and powers, in the low standard of his moral habits, in the abundant activity of his appetites, in his indifference, his ease, his good nature, in the full-blown exhibition of what Christian Theology would call conformity to the world, he is, as strictly as the nature of the case admits, a product of the invention of man. He is the god of intercourse on earth; and thus he holds in heaven by mythological title, what came to Iris by primitive tradition. The proof must, I think, be sufficiently evident, from what has been and will be adduced piecemeal and by way of contrast, in the accounts of other and, for that period at least, more important divinities.
Venus.
The Venus of Homer.
There is no deity, except perhaps Dionysus, of whom the position and estimation in Homer are so vividly contrasted with those, to which he or she attained in later paganism, as Venus. The Venus of Virgil, the Venus of Lucretius, are separated by an immeasurable interval from the Aphrodite of Homer. And the manner in which she is treated throughout the Iliad and Odyssey is not only curious, as indicating the nature and origin of her divinity, but is of very high interest as illustrative of the great Poet’s tone of mind and feeling.
There is no act of worship or reverence, no sign of awe or deference, shown to her in any part of either of the poems. Yet her rank is indisputably elevated. It is beyond doubt that she belongs to the Olympian family. She appears in Olympus, not as specially sent for, but as entitled ordinarily to be there: she takes a side in the war: she makes the birth of Æneas more glorious on the mother’s side than that of Achilles, who was sprung from Thetis, the daughter of Nereus, and a deity of inferior dignity to hers. Not only is Jupiter her father, but her mother Dione is an Olympian goddess. Yet her Olympian rank is ill sustained by powers and prerogatives: and she probably owed it to the poetical necessity, which obliged Homer to have an array of divinities on each side in the war, with some semblance of equality at least between the rival divisions.
The indications of the poem may lead us to believe that her name and worship were of recent origin. That a worship of her had begun is obvious: for in Paphos, a town of Cyprus, and the only one named by Homer, she had both an altar, and a τέμενος, or dedicated estate; and she bears the name of Cypris[461]. But we have only the very slightest mention of her, or of any thing connected with her, in Greece proper. We have seen much reason to assume that Cyprus was essentially Pelasgian, and ethnically more akin to Troy than to Greece. In Troy we find various signs of her influence. She sent to Andromache the marriage gift of her κρήδεμνον[462]. She made to Paris the fatal present of his lust[463]. She fell in love with Anchises, and became the mother of Æneas[464]. She led Helen away from the roof of Menelaus[465], and was an object of dread to her when in Troy[466]. Minerva, in taunting her bitterly about her wound, supposes she may have got it by a scratch from a golden buckle, in undressing some Greek woman that she had persuaded to elope with one of the Trojans whom she so signally loves[467]. Again, it appears from a speech of Helen, that she was worshipped in Phrygia and Mæonia[468]. The only token of her influence in Greece is, that she is twice in the Odyssey called Κυθέρεια. Thus we see her not strictly within Greece, but rather advanced some steps on her way to it. And it is easy to suppose that, in the race of corruption, her worship would run among the fastest.
Venus as yet scarcely Greek.
The negative evidence, then, thus far tends to the belief that Venus was not yet established among the regular deities of the Poet’s countrymen: and it is supported by positive testimony. For some of the functions, that must in the post-Homeric view of her office have belonged to her, Homer studiously makes other provision. Of this there is a most remarkable case in the Odyssey. He designs that the Suitors, before they are put to death, shall be made to yield of their substance to the house of Ulysses, in the form of gifts to Penelope. For this purpose he arrays her in all her charms, and brings her forth in appearance like Diana, or golden Venus[469]. It is not a common practice with Homer to compare a beautiful Greek woman to Venus; especially when it is one so matronlike as Penelope. On the other hand, the comparison of Cassandra to Venus[470] is entirely in keeping with the Asiatic character of the deity. But the intention of the allusion here is manifest: for when the Suitors see her, it is passion which prompts them to vie with one another in courting her favour through the medium of costly gifts. How, then, came the sad Penelope thus to deck herself? It was not her own thought: it was the suggestion of a deity, and if Venus had been recognised by Homer as an established object of worship in Greece, Venus would most properly have made the suggestion: for she, says Achilles, is supreme in beauty, as Minerva is in industry and skill[471]. But it is Minerva who instils this suggestion into the mind of Penelope; though in a form which conveys no taint to her mind[472]. She goes, however, beyond this: for she sends Penelope to sleep, and then, to enhance her beauty, applies to her face a wash, of the kind that Venus herself uses when she goes among the Graces. Yet this is not procured from Venus, as Juno in the Iliad procures the cestus from her on Mount Olympus; nor is her agency or aid in any manner employed. Thus she is not allowed, as it were, to have to do in any manner with Penelope; a clear indication, I think, that though known, she was not yet worshipped in Greece proper.
She appears, indeed, in the legend of the daughters of Pandareus[473]: but the scene of this legend is not stated by Homer to be in Greece, and by general tradition it is placed in Crete or in Asia Minor.